Peter Bagge

Early life

Peter Bagge was born in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in the New York City suburbs. Bagge's father was in the military and Bagge has talked about how his Catholic household was the scene of "lots of drunken fights about money. We were the weirdo outcast kids of the neighborhood. I couldn't get away fast enough." Bagge was confirmed as a teenager; his confirmation name is Peter Christian Paul Bagge (with Paul being an homage to Paul McCartney.)

Moving to New York City in the mid-1970s, Bagge attended the School of Visual Arts for three semesters in 1977 before dropping out to work on Punk Magazine.

Early career

Bagge worked on his cartooning at Punk alongside such fellow cartoonists as John Holmstrom, Ken Weiner, and Bruce Carleton, J.D. King and Kaz. During this period, the young cartoonists also were the beneficiaries of "useful advice" from Art Spiegelman. Bagge additionally contributed to the underground newspaper Screw.

When Punk ceased publication in 1980, Bagge and Holstrom co-published Comical Funnies. Bagge sent copies of Comical Funnies to underground comics legend Robert Crumb, who published some Bagge strips in the anthology Crumb was editing, Weirdo. In 1983, Crumb passed on the editorial reins of Weirdo to Bagge, who edited it for three years (and one guest issue in 1989).

In 1985, Bagge entered into a long professional association with the alternative-comics publisher Fantagraphics, beginning with his first solo series, Neat Stuff. This omnibus introduced such characters as Girly-Girl, Junior, Studs Kirby, The Bradleys, and Buddy Bradley. Neat Stuff ran until 1989. Its sequel series, Hate (1990–1998), is Bagge's best-known. After ending Hate as a regular title, Bagge has produced a series of Hate Annuals.

Bagge created and wrote an all-ages comic series for DC Comics called Yeah!, about an all-girl rock band, drawn by Gilbert Hernandez. The series ran nine issues (1999 to 2000). Sweatshop, published by DC Comics in 2003, was produced, unlike early issues of Hate, with the help of an art team. The series ran six issues.

In 2002, Bagge did his version of Spider-Man for Marvel Comics. He followed this with a Hulk comic, The Incorrigible Hulk, which was completed but never released due to a management change at Marvel Comics at the time. In August 2009, The Incorrigible Hulk was finally released in serialized form for the Marvel Knights imprint's Strange Tales miniseries.

2005 – present

From 2005–2007, Bagge worked on Apocalypse Nerd, a comic published by Dark Horse Comics about two average, urban males dealing with the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the Pacific Northwest. Backup stories in Apocalypse Nerd featured historically researched anecdotal tales of America's "founding fathers". The final issue of the six-issue series was published in 2007. A trade paperback collection was released in 2008.

Other Lives is a graphic novel written and drawn by Bagge, and published by DC Comics on their Vertigo imprint in 2010. The story revolves around four people, whose real lives—along with their online virtual personas—interact in ultimately disastrous ways.

Reset is a four-part, monthly comic-book miniseries written and illustrated by Bagge and published by Dark Horse. The story revolves around a middle-aged, washed-up comic actor who agrees to take part in the development of a computer application that allows him to relive his life in a virtual sense. The first issue was released in April 2012. It was collected into a book that same year.

Publishers of Bagge's articles, illustrations and comics include suck.com, Reason, MAD Magazine, and the Weekly World News, with the comic strip Adventures of Batboy. In January 2008, Bagge contributed illustrations to toonlet, an online comic construction web site.

Starting with the February 2009 issue, the popular science and technology magazine Discover Magazine has featured a continuing series of History of Science comic strips created by Peter Bagge. Bagge’s comics feature key characters and events from scientific history.

Bagge is the subject of the first volume of TwoMorrows Publishing's new Comics Introspective series of books, published in 2007. Peter Bagge: Conversations, a collection of interviews with Bagge spanning three decades was published 2015 by the University Press of Mississippi.

His graphic-novel biographies include Woman Rebel, about birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, and Fire!!, about writer Zora Neale Hurston.

In 2003, Bagge became a contributing writer with the libertarian magazine Reason in whose pages he has published both prose and comics pieces over the years. 2009 saw the release of a collection of Bagge's Reason work called Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me (And Other Astute Observations). A second edition was released in late 2013. Bagge continues to contribute to Reason.

Animation and music

Bagge made a series of animated commercials for Round Table Pizza. In 2001 Bagge collaborated with comedian Dana Gould to produce the Macromedia Flash Internet cartoon Murry Wilson: Rock 'N' Roll Dad. The four-episode series premiered on Icebox.com.

Art style

Bagge's signature elastic, kinetic art style is a product of his love for 1940s Warner Brothers cartoons (especially those directed by Bob Clampett). Bagge has said that he "always wanted to capture that sense of movement and exaggeration in a static format. In retrospect this sounds like a futile thing to attempt, but I think I wound up pulling it off better than I ever thought I would."

Personal life

Bagge's wife Joanne contributes coloring work to her husband's publications.

Bagge has long been openly libertarian in his politics, and many of his comics feature references to this. He opposed the Iraq War and criticized George W Bush. Bagge voted for Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne in 2000 and Democrat John Kerry in 2004 because he "wanted to fire Bush." When asked who he was voting for in the 2008 election, he wrote: "If the polls in my home state are close: Obama (McCain is simply too incompetent these days to be president). If not, I'll make a protest vote for [Bob] Barr." In a follow-up article in Reason, Bagge stated, "I wound up voting for Barr, and I stand by that vote more now than I did then!"

Bagge collected his work for Reason expressing his Libertarian views in the book Everybody is Stupid Except Me: and Other Astute Observations. Bagge has continued with his strips covering libertarian issues in Hate Annual.

Awards

Bagge won the 1991 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist. In addition, Hate won the 1991 Harvey Award for Best New Series., and has been nominated for various Harvey wards in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999. Bagge was presented with an Inkpot Award at San Diego Comic-Con International 2010 in recognition of his achievements in comics.

He was nominated for Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards several times:

Bagge was also the recipient of a 2014 United States Artists ward, and is now a Rockefeller Fellow for Literature.